“Each Tentative List includes an email address to which comments on the proposals may be submitted. PSD accepts comments from LC and SACO catalogers, other library and archive professionals, lawmakers, and members of the general public. The comment period lasts approximately one month, beginning with the publication of the Tentative List and continuing until the closing date indicated on the list.”

The following are newly approved headings which I proposed [or canceled LCSH in favor of NARs]

ASMR (Intersensory effect)

Identical twins

Sabbath

Added a UF of ‘Shabbat’

Coloring books [LCGFT term]

And now, onto the headings!

Accordion and computer music

Close enough

Accountants–Certification

The only certification I recognize

Appropriation (Architecture)

if you aren’t Kyrptonian, you shouldn’t live in this

Artificial ankle

I dunno, is that an ankle?

Chalk drawing, English

Are they still doing the chalking ‘debate’ at Wesleyan?

Coffee cup lids

Louise has weapon

Cooking (Rice cakes)

WHAT?!

Cotton in art

wait’ll someone proposes “Googly eyes in art”

Fantastic, The, in music

Fan-fucking-tastic

Fidget spinners

oh man, Ash could’ve caught THREE TIMES as many Pokémon with this

Food in musicals

pease pudding and saveloys

Guitar controller (Musical instrument)

Remember nothing but PRACTICE will actually make you betterbut also, i want one

Life in the UK Test

I managed to get ahold of this actual page from the test

Postnuptial agreements

I hope all postnuptial agreements aren’t as irritating as this

Shades and shadows in architecture

mmmm art deco Batman

Steamship passengers

Rose won’t even make space for James Cameron

Wallpaper in art

Forget *in* art, this IS art

Wine fraud

And I would’ve gotten away with it too if it weren’t for you lousy sommeliers!

I think this is a great idea! We’ve long since known that people want to know the form of a material before selecting it, heck we stuck it right in the middle of the title field in $h with a general material designation. If a patron is looking for a resource by title, and there’s a play, motion picture, and novel all with the same title — that can be an important initial piece of information by which to limit their search.

So what’s the problem? I’m worried that we’re actually not as faceted as we could be. The problem is actually right in the name of the vocabulary. Genre/Form.

It’s two things: genres and forms!

Let me show you what I mean:

Science fiction

Science fiction comics

Science fiction films

Science fiction plays

Science fiction poetry

Science fiction radio programs

Science fiction television programs

That’s seven terms, each of which expresses a genre, followed by the form. [the unadorned “science fiction” is part of the literature hierarchy and is textual]

This is by no means an outlier either, there are eight permutations for “Political”, seven permutations for “Fantasy” and “Horror”, six for “Detective and mystery”, “Thrillers”, and “Westerns” [this is not exhaustive! Explore the vocab yourself and find more]

Remember that every single term in this or any LC vocabulary requires research on the part of the proposer and approval by the Policy and Standards Division at LC.

What if we encoded genre and form separately?

Rather than 47 terms, we could express all of those unique genre/forms with eight form terms and seven genre terms. That’d make for a leaner vocabulary and more precise machine processing.

Leaner vocabularies without crossing of the streams are easier to maintain and introduce new terms [without having to worry that introducing a new genre means adding additional ones for every possible genre/form combo]

Machine processing of a unique genre or unique form [rather than a combo] is easier to match to other vocabularies from form specific disciplines which wouldn’t include the form in their term.

Ultimately what I’m trying to get at is what the title says: fantasy is fantasy. Whether it’s a comic book, a tv show, or poetry — it’s all of the fantasy genre.